MITCHELL – A rescue mission was suspended once darkness fell Sunday night, hours after a girl fell through the ice hours just east of this Perth County community near Stratford. It was set to resume Monday morning.
The 10-year-old girl fell through the ice on Whirl Creek in Mitchell around 10:30 am Sunday, Perth East-West Perth fire Chief Bill Hunter said. Search and rescue crews from West Perth, St. Marys and Stratford were at the scene for most of the day, Hunter said, using ATV’s and boats.
An OPP helicopter, drones and canine unit also helped in the search, he said Sunday night. “We put just about every resource we had available into action.”
Fire crews from Perth East and Sebringville were also searching for the missing girl on the riverbank, Hunter said. He praised his firefighters and noted Ontario Provincial Police are “taking the lead on the search” for the child.
“We’re there to assist them.”
Hunter also asked all members of the public to continue to avoid the area.
“We heard comments on Facebook of people organizing a citizen search party. We don’t want anyone down here by the riverbank,” he said. “It’s dangerous enough with our trained personnel. As much as we appreciate the concern, we don’t want private citizens coming down to the river.”
OPP said in a statement Sunday that crews were working in “treacherous conditions” and said citizen search groups could “hinder the rescue efforts.”
Firefighters from Sebringville who were part of the search effort, kept an eye on the creek from a bridge on Road 160, near Frank Street in Mitchell. Three area residents who asked not to be identified were also there overlooking the fast-moving creek Sunday afternoon, a creek that runs east to west toward Mitchell and through town.
“I heard on social media somebody had gone through the ice so I thought that I could be some eyes on a bridge, just seeing if I can help,” one man said.
Word about the emergency quickly spread through town that morning, the trio said. They got to the bridge around 2:30 pm Sunday. “We have our own kids,” a woman said. “If it was my kid in the water, I’d want every set of eyes (looking).”
Whirl Creek is part of the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority. In its latest bulletin, the agency urged the public to stay off all frozen water bodies as the winter snow pack melts.
“Any ice cover will be weakened and unstable,” the UTRCA warned in its March 4 update. “Banks adjacent to rivers and creeks are very slippery and, when combined with cold, fast-moving water, pose a serious hazard.”
“The way the water is moving tonight, it’s incredible,” Hunter said Sunday. “There’s a lot of water coming off the fields. . . it’s a very dangerous area to be. Some of the banks that we were standing on at the start of the day are completely under water. It’s a very quickly evolving scene.”
He added: “It’s terribly tragic.”
-With files from reporter Andy Bader